


How (Not) To Share A Bathroom

by renaissance



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Comedy of Errors, Developing Relationship, M/M, University
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-23
Updated: 2015-06-23
Packaged: 2018-04-05 15:28:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4185045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A love story in two parts, told in passive-aggressive post-it notes and cluttered bathroom shelves, late nights and early mornings, locked doors and near misses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [junebirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebirds/gifts).



> I'll try to keep this short, because I do have a few notes—as the summary says, this is in two parts. You can either read it in chapter order, or as I wrote it, a scene from each chapter at a time. It's very clear where the scenes end! Anyway, this entire idea came from a college I stayed in once... and sort of spiralled from there.
> 
> To junebirds—I had a great deal of fun filling your prompt to the best of my ability! As you can probably tell from the T rating, I'm not a smut writer, so I've had a go at fluff. Somehow, this acquired a plot. I hope you like it, though!
> 
> To my cheer squad—you know who you are, and it doesn't even bear mentioning that this fic wouldn't exist the way it does if it weren't for you.

**Day 1**

It takes Suga three embarrassing minutes to work out that, contrary to intuition, the key fits the other way into the lock. When he finally gets the door open, it’s with a slump of relief against the doorframe, a momentary reprieve before he drags his suitcase inside and sets it at the foot of his new bed.

The dorm is sparse, but there’s room for improvement. The bedclothes can be changed, the pinboard can be covered with photos and assignment notifications and souvenirs, and the pins can be arranged into a smiley face when they’re not in use. The windowsill is perfect for pot plants, and the shelves will look much better with some textbooks on them.

To the left is a second door, and Suga thinks to himself, _right, shared bathroom_. He crosses his fingers as he closes the main entrance behind him. With any luck, his bathroom buddy will be someone clean. Suga has more bottles of hair product in his suitcase than he’d care to admit, but he’s willing to take up less shelf space if it means an accommodating cohabitation.

He puts off checking the bathroom until later, though.

When the door had been open, it’d obscured the closet, so Suga starts by getting all of his clothes out of his suitcase and onto hangers. He writes his name on the nameplate that was in the envelope with his keys and sticks it to the front door. He unmakes and remakes his bed, just to get a feel for it.

He can’t pinpoint why he’s still so nervous about the shared bathroom, but he reasons it’s probably some deep-seated only child thing, that he’s only ever lived so close to his parents—even sharing a bathroom with a dozen other boys at training camps wasn’t as personal as this.

Steeling himself with a deep breath, he curls his fingers into fists and then unclenches one to open the bathroom door. It’s not locked, so there must be no-one inside. Come to think of it, had he even seen a nameplate on his neighbour’s door? Maybe they’re not in yet.

Something catches Suga’s eye, though, a post-it note stuck in the middle at the bottom of the mirror. He has an instinctive and repulsed reaction, ripping the note off the mirror before it can damage the surface.

It reads: _Good morning neighbour! To the left is my half of the sink, and to the right is yours! Let’s have a good year with a tidy bathroom!_

The tone is innocent enough, but Suga’s still annoyed about the adhesive on the mirror, so he dashes back into his room and digs around in his suitcase until he finds a stack of post-its, packed at his mum’s insistence, “just in case there’s no pinboard in your room, Koushi, I _know_ it says there will be, but you can never be too prepared.”

He writes out a short message and sticks it on his neighbour’s side of the mirror. It’s not his most eloquent, but it’ll do—it’ll _have_ to do, because his phone alarm goes off, buzzing on the surface of his new desk, reminding him that his induction seminar is in fifteen minutes. He locks the bathroom door on his side, and then double-checks it.

The medical student induction turns out to be on the other side of campus, and Suga’s almost late for all the time it takes him to find his way to the lecture theatre. There’s a text sitting on his phone from Yaku—the only person from their Tokyo training camp he’s kept in regular contact with—saying he’s saved a seat near the back. The lecturer’s already started talking when Suga works up the courage to slide in through the door—he shouldn’t have worried, though, because the theatre is so large and so full that no-one bats an eyelid.

“Did you get lost?” Yaku asks in a whisper.

“Not really,” Suga lies. “There was a problem with my shared bathroom.”

“Don’t tell me,” Yaku says, “messy neighbour?”

Suga glances down to the front of the theatre—there are plenty of people chatting, and the lecturer hasn’t even noticed. “The opposite, actually,” he says. “I was perfectly prepared to get along, but he left a passive-aggressive message on a post-it note on the mirror about dividing the shelf space, so I wrote a message back and then put my stuff on exactly half of the shelf.”

“That sounds like less of a ‘problem’ and more of a cold war,” Yaku says. “And you have no idea who this person is?”

“None at all,” Suga says. “There’s no nameplate on the door yet, so he really could be anyone.”

Yaku frowns. “Well, don’t let it get to your head. The last thing you need this year is a distraction like this.”

Suga gives him a smile. “Don’t worry about it.”

And if he can convince himself, Suga won’t worry about it either.

 

* * *

 

**Day 15**

Suga’s been getting back to his dorm later and later with every passing day. Term’s only just started, and already he’s been consumed by assignments—and the cold war in his shared bathroom.

Suga only knows his elusive neighbour as Tooru, which is what’s written on his nameplate. Tooru is very concerned about cleanliness, and apparently doesn’t trust Suga with cleanliness, because he’s been moving all their stuff on the shelf about a centimetre towards Suga’s door every day. Suga’s taken to waiting two days, and then moving it all back. They’re never in at the same time, either—Suga has tried knocking on Tooru’s door a couple of times, but he’s never around during the day, and at night Suga never gets back until it’s too late to disturb anyone.

Most nights, he goes back to Yaku’s place to study. Yaku lives close to the uni and the contents of his fridge are always infinitely more pleasant than whatever the college dining hall has to offer. It’s not doing much for Suga’s plan to really turn his dorm into a second home, though.

At least tonight Yaku’s hanging out with a friend, so Suga gets back to his dorm early and locks himself in to finish an assignment. It’s not due for a few weeks, but Suga likes starting early, for however long that inclination will last.

There's a new post-it note in the bathroom, too, next to a splodge of shaving foam on the edge of the sink: _Don't forget to clean up after yourself, Koushi-kun!_

Suga sighs loudly enough that Tooru would be able to hear him if he was next-door. Ever since Suga made the mistake of referring to Tooru by name he’s had to deal with this unusual familiarity. The only other people who call him “Koushi-kun” are his aunts and uncles. A couple of times, he's come close to leaving a note that says _CALL ME SUGA!!!_

Instead, he just wipes away the foam with a bit of toilet paper and scrunches up the note, relegating both scraps to the bathroom bin, which has seen more post-it notes than anything else.

He leaves a note in reply and goes back to his assignment, and that seems to be that.

Then, at about eight-thirty, he hears the a laugh from the bathroom. It’s a loud, pretty laugh, the kind that would probably charm Suga into laughing back if it was coming from someone in the same room. Suga jumps at the sound, his chair creaking against the floor. After that, he sits frozen still as he hears the sound of pen on paper—a reply, he presumes—and then the sound of the shower running.

Usually, Tooru showers at ridiculous o’clock in the morning when Suga is still in bed and trying to get some sleep. It strikes Suga as a little weird that he knows Tooru’s schedule so intimately, and yet knows nothing about him. It’s kind of sweet, though, kind of domestic, the sort of friendship they have. Finding notes in his bathroom has become something regular for Suga, and he likes regularity, likes being able to have something, even something small, that he can come back to while the rest of the world moves around him.

It does worry him, just a bit, that he’s started thinking so fondly of someone who is still essentially a complete stranger.

Picking up his phone, he scrolls through his contacts, wondering who would be the best choice to text about this. Somehow, he can hear both Daichi and Yaku in the back of his head, saying “What the hell?!”—so, Asahi it is.

(To: Asahi) _Hi! How’s work treating you? Can I ask you a personal question?_

(From: Asahi) _Work is… well, stressful, I guess. Do you want to call?_

Suga glances at the bathroom door—the shower’s running pretty heavily, so it’s a risk he can probably take.

“Hey, Suga, what’s up?” Asahi greets him.

“It’s a long story, and I don’t know how long I’ve got,” Suga says, quickly and quietly.

“Why are you whispering?” Asahi asks. Suga can practically hear the raised eyebrows.

“My neighbour’s in the shower, and I don’t want him to hear me talking,” Suga says.

“Is this the guy with twice as many hair products as you?”

“Yeah,” Suga says, lowering his voice even further. “Asahi, have you ever had a crush on someone you’ve never properly met?”

“Huh?” Asahi says. “Um, I don’t think so? Is this still about your neighbour?”

Suga looks at the bathroom door again. “It is,” he admits. “We’ve been corresponding—don’t laugh!—we’ve been corresponding with post-it notes. He’s really, um—”

“Ah! Sorry!” Asahi says apologetically. “I only laughed because you’re making it sound so serious! I know you’re usually the one telling _me_ to relax, but, Suga—if you think you like him, you should just _talk_ to him.”

“What if I _don’t_ like him, though?” Suga muses. “What if, when I talk to him, it turns out that he’s actually really annoying to be around?”

“Good point,” Asahi says. “Oh, no—what if he’s creepy? Suga, that would be awful. Maybe you should just stick to post-it notes.”

Suga laughs. “I knew I could count on you to talk me out of doing anything stupid, Asahi.”

“Y-yeah,” Asahi says. “Suga, stay safe, okay?”

“I will,” Suga says, as he hears the shower being switched off. “I have to go now, but thank you!”

“Any time,” Asahi says. “I think.”

Suga hangs up and takes a deep breath as he puts his phone down on his desk. He can still hear Tooru pottering around in the bathroom. He really hopes Tooru knows what he’s doing, because he sure doesn’t.

 

* * *

 

**Day 32**

Suga’s first party at uni is a third-hand invitation from Yaku, who was invited by Kuroo, who was invited by some other friend of his. He gets the feeling that somehow city parties will be different from country parties, that he’ll end up caught in a swarm of strangers and swept away in a torrid one-night romance.

So maybe he’s overthinking it a bit—either way, it’s the biggest social gathering on his agenda outside of biology labs, and he’s sort of excited. Excited enough to arrive early, at least, but Yaku and Kuroo are already there, which is comforting.

The house’s living room takes a while to fill up, but when it does, it’s buzzing. Suga stays close to the people he knows, though. There are a couple of guys from Fukurodani there who he recognises, but somehow they all manage to be social butterflies. Bokuto chats to the three of them for a bit, but while Kuroo’s gone to get drinks he disappears to chat to _another_ old friend he hasn’t seen in forever.

“Two lemonades, and a ginger beer for me,” Kuroo says, handing Suga and Yaku a can each upon his return. “Hey, where’d Bokuto get to?”

“He saw a friend,” Suga says.

“ _Another_ one,” Yaku adds. They share a look.

Kuroo stands on his toes and looks back over the crowd—he’s tall enough to actually be able to do that. “Never underestimate Bokuto’s power to—oh, hey, is that—just a second—”

With that, he’s gone, leaving Suga and Yaku to stare awkwardly after him.

“You know,” Yaku says, “I really hate parties.”

Suga laughs a bit nervously. “I’d feel a lot more comfortable with fewer people here. Back home, parties were never like this.”

“I keep forgetting you’re from the middle of nowhere,” Yaku jokes. “Honestly, though, I only really invited you so I’d have someone to talk to. Somehow, I’ve managed to only make friends with extroverts.”

“We could just leave early,” Suga suggests, “since we got here so early. Anyway, I promised Daichi I’d skype him sometime. Do you want to come back to my dorm, and we can call him and pretend we’ve been out misbehaving?”

“You’re a fundamentally silly person,” Yaku says, and it sounds more like a compliment than an insult. “Okay. Let’s get out of here.”

It’s not a long walk back to campus, and they dawdle a bit by the vending machines, stocking up on snacks for the evening. Once they’re back in Suga’s dorm, he boots up his laptop and goes quickly to the bathroom—at least, he means to be quick, but there’s a new note from Tooru.

This time, it’s stuck to the shower door, slightly too high for Suga to reach without standing on his toes: _I hope you don’t mind me putting notes on this glass! I just want to make sure you haven’t been using my shampoo. It’s been running out faster than usual!_

He hasn’t really told anyone apart from Yaku and Asahi about the post-it note thing, and Asahi is the only one who knows he’s nursing a weird crush on his neighbour. He’s got to go back into his dorm and face Yaku, and he’s not about to tell him that the reply he’s going to write will have definitively crossed the line from Joking to Flirting.

“Is this your weird neighbour again?” Yaku asks as Suga picks up his post-it pad and a pen.

“Yeah,” he says, not looking up from his note. “He’s kinda fun.”

“You’re blushing a bit,” Yaku points out.

“Thanks,” Suga says, still not looking up. He quickly puts the note on the shower door and then then locks his bathroom door behind him, turning his full attention to his laptop. It’s not long before Daichi pops up on the screen, and he’s got a friend with him.

“Bad timing?” Suga asks.

“Don’t worry about it,” Daichi says. “Iwaizumi and I were just getting some study in before our quiz tomorrow.”

“Right, right,” Suga says. It’s still sort of weird to him that Daichi’s become such good friends with someone from Seijou, but Suga can’t really talk, spending all his time with ex-Nekoma students. At least he and Yaku have been getting to know each other for almost a year—what’s weird about Daichi hanging out with Iwaizumi is that apparently they hit it off right away.

“Oh, hey Yaku,” Daichi says. “Are you two studying as well?”

“Not likely,” Yaku says. “We just got back from a party.”

“Bit early, isn’t it?” Iwaizumi chimes in, looking up from the textbook he’s holding.

“It was a bit _tame_ for us,” Suga says, “so we left.”

“You hear all these stories about med students,” Daichi says, “about how they—”

He’s cut off by Iwaizumi’s phone ringing. “Sorry, it’s Oikawa,” he says, bringing the phone up to his ear. “Hold on—I’ll be back in a minute.”

Daichi rolls his eyes as Suga hears the sound of a door closing in the background. “Anyway,” he says, “I hope you two aren’t getting up to anything too out-of-order.”

“No, _Captain_ ,” Suga says. “What is this, training camp?”

“Yeah, well,” Daichi says grumpily, “it’s not like you were the paragon of good behaviour at training camp.”

“You don’t need to worry, Sawamura,” Yaku says, shoving Suga in the arm, “I’m making sure he stays in line, and doesn’t get too _distracted_ by anything.”

“Yaku—” Suga warns, but it’s too late; Daichi’s picked up on his tone.

“Oh yeah? What sort of things are _distracting_ you, Suga?”

“Nothing,” Suga says—he says it too quickly, though, and mentally curses himself. “I mean, nothing serious.”

“He’s been flirting with his next-door neighbour,” Yaku says

Suga jabs him in the side. “Yaku! I have _not_!”

Daichi rests his chin in his hands. “Ah, young love,” he says. “What’s he like?”

“That’s the thing,” Yaku says, in between being tickled to death by Suga, who is out for vengeance. “They haven’t actually—”

Yaku cuts off as Iwaizumi runs back into Daichi’s dorm, throwing his phone down on the bed and then pouncing on Daichi’s laptop. Suga only registers what’s happened when he sees their mouths moving but doesn’t hear anything from the speakers—Iwaizumi’s cut off the microphone, and he seems to be talking very quickly. Daichi breaks down laughing for a bit, and then replies, and it goes on like that for almost three minutes.

“What just happened?” Yaku asks. “Is this normal in Miyagi?”

“This isn’t normal in any universe, never mind any prefecture,” Suga says. “Why didn’t he just close the laptop if he wanted privacy?”

Yaku glances at his watch. “Well, I’d better be heading off,” he says. “I’ll catch you in class on Monday, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Suga says. “I’ll see you then.”

After a minute, Daichi is back online, and it looks like Iwaizumi’s left his room.

“Sorry about that,” Daichi says, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye.

“Is everything alright?” Suga asks. “What did I just witness?”

“Just some weirdness with Iwaizumi,” Daichi says. “He, um, I guess he felt uncomfortable telling you, but needed to get it off his chest… ?”

“Alright,” Suga says, even though it doesn’t really make sense.

After that, they go back to talking normally. They catch up like this every so often, and it’s just what Suga needs right now—he manages to distract himself from any thoughts of Tooru, and when he finally goes to sleep that night, he’s satisfied that he has nothing to worry about.

 

* * *

 

**Day 49**

A month and a half after moving into his dorm in Tokyo, Suga finally puts his finger on what had initially bothered him about the idea of a shared bathroom. The thing is, each door to the bathroom has two locks—one facing the bedroom, so you can stop your neighbour from waltzing in when they please, and one facing the bathroom, so you can stop your neighbour from trying to come into the bathroom when you’re busy.

A couple of times, Suga’s accidentally left the door locked on Tooru’s side, but he’s remembered pretty quickly and unlocked it so that Tooru could get into the bathroom. And a couple of times he’s forgotten to lock the door from his room so that Tooru couldn’t get in—although, why would anyone do that without knocking?—but again, it’s never been for long.

Now, though, it’s six-thirty in the morning, Suga has a class at eight, and _he can’t get into his own bathroom_.

First, he tries banging on the bathroom door. It’s still early, so he’s sort of aware that he’s going to wake other people up, but Suga’s never been a morning person. He wakes up after a shower. And if he can’t get into his bathroom, he can’t shower, so he bangs even louder.

There’s no response, so he hangs his lanyard with his keys around his neck, slips on a pair of sandals, and slings a towel over his shoulders to keep himself warm. He steps out into the drafty corridor and knocks on Tooru’s door.

“Tooru,” he calls, leaning with his forehead against the door. “Tooru, please, wake up. I need to shower.”

And then he remembers—Tooru, unlike Suga, _is_ a morning person, showering at the crack of dawn for whatever unholy reason drives him to wake up that early. He’s probably not even in his dorm anymore. He’s probably one of those people who goes for jogs. He’s probably halfway across the city right now.

Well, however long it takes, Suga resolves to wait. It’s not like he’s never gotten ready in a rush. There’s still an hour and a bit until his class starts. He can skip breakfast if it means having a warm shower. He slumps down with his back against Tooru’s door, crosses his legs and folds his arms, and _waits_.

Somewhere along the line, Suga starts to doze off—he can feel his head drooping forward and his eyes closing, and he tries to fight it, but it becomes too tempting just to shut his eyes tightly and—

“What are _you_ doing here?!”

Suga jumps to his feet at the sound of a stranger’s voice—he suddenly wonders if, in his tiredness, he stopped in front of the wrong door.

“I was locked out of my bathroom,” he says.

He rubs his eyes, and then he looks, looks _properly_ at the person standing in front of him, hands on his hips and an accusing scowl on his face, and this _can’t_ be Tooru, Tooru who leaves post-it notes on bathroom mirrors and uses way too much aftershave, because this is _Oikawa_ Tooru, appearing as a sort of spectre, less human and more nightmarish memory from Suga’s high school volleyball career that he was never too keen to revisit.

 _There are lots of people called Tooru_ , Suga tells himself. He opens his mouth to say something reasonable, something rational, something that he would have said with a cool head to reassure his old teammates.

What comes out of his mouth is, “Oh.”

This Tooru doesn’t look anything like the frightening opponent from Seijou—he just looks like a normal boy, like Suga, except maybe more awake. Like Suga, he’s wearing shorts and a t-shirt, only Tooru’s clothes are for running, not sleeping. Like Suga, he’s got keys around his neck on a lanyard. Like Suga, he’s got a look on his face like he’s seen a ghost.

“Why are you outside my door?” Tooru asks. “I mean, why are you in Tokyo?”

“I go to uni here,” Suga says. “Why are _you_ outside _my_ door?”

“This is _my_ door,” Tooru says, gesturing. “You are literally standing outside _my_ door.”

“Sure, but my door’s right next to yours,” Suga says. The words leaving his mouth are not the perfect sentences in his head, but he hopes they get the message across.

Tooru’s face falls. “Please don’t tell me your name is Sugawara Koushi.”

“Okay,” Suga says, stepping aside. “You can go in now.”

“This is definitely not happening,” Tooru says, blinking. “I am dreaming. I dreamt that I went for a run, and now the dream is combining the fact that you’re in half my classes with my thing for my next-door neighbour. That’s fine. I’ll wake up soon.”

As Suga watches Tooru take his lanyard off and unlock his door, he feels like he’s being dragged kicking and screaming into awareness. He’s _pretty_ sure that, first of all, Tooru said they share half their classes—but wouldn’t Suga have noticed?—and second, that he mentioned a thing for his neighbour, which would mean that the neighbour who Suga has a thing for also has a thing for him, and is also someone in half his classes, and is _also_ someone he knows from high school.

It’s way too much to take in.

“Can you unlock the bathroom door for me?” Suga asks.

“Of course,” Tooru says. “This is a lucid dream. I’m going to unlock the door. Sorry that I locked you out of the bathroom in a dream. Next time I fall asleep I’ll be more careful.”

Suga lets out an involuntary laugh as he goes back into his own dorm and stands in front of his bathroom door. He thinks back to that night a few weeks ago, when Iwaizumi got a call from Oikawa—from _Tooru_ , Suga’s mind corrects—while he was in Daichi’s room, and how he came back in and turned off the microphone, and how they went on to laugh about something for the next three minutes. Suga is pretty sure he was the butt of that joke.

The bathroom door swings open, and for all that the bathroom floor is elevated slightly, Tooru is even taller than he usually would be, and he’s looking down on Suga with a look of confusion and frustration. Suga recognises it almost too well—the last time someone looked at him like that, there was a net between them.

“I’m not dreaming, am I?” Tooru asks.

Suga reaches out and pinches his arm.

Without a word, Tooru leaves the door hanging open, turns around and walks back into his bedroom, shutting the bathroom door behind him. Suga stares after him.

“Well,” he says to the empty bathroom, “what am I supposed to do now?”

 

* * *

 

**Day 57**

Every day, Suga picks something from Tooru’s side of the shelf, and something from his side, and swaps them around. By now, it’s muddled enough that there’s no more clear line down the middle, and that they end up reaching across each other to get to their things—Suga doesn’t mind, though.

He doesn’t mind that they keep the doors open now, moving between each others’ rooms like it’s nothing, even though they keep such different hours. They at least share their biology and chemistry lectures, but Tooru is at volleyball almost every evening, and even some mornings when he’s not running, so Suga tries not to stay up so late studying. It’s a tough habit to break, but he’s getting there.

He’s still getting used to it all—the introductions more than anything, hearing Tooru say, “This is my boyfriend,” and even the fact that Tooru stubbornly refuses to call him “Suga.” It’s still settling in, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it’s the sort of the opposite.

“Well, you got there in the end,” Kuroo says, when Tooru “officially” introduces Suga to his volleyball friends. “And that’s what matters.”

“No thanks to you,” Tooru says. There’s a slightly icy edge to his cheeriness, so Suga nudges him.

“Look,” Bokuto says, “everyone’s happy, so I’m happy! And you should be happy too, Kuroo!”

“I _am_ happy,” Kuroo says, his voice flat—he can only hold a straight face for a few seconds, anyway, before breaking into a smile.

Tooru doesn’t hang around for long after that, dragging Suga away. “Come on, Koushi, we’re getting a late dinner.”

“Is that a threat or an offer?” Suga asks.

“After that,” Tooru says, acknowledging Suga with a smile but choosing to ignore that thread of conversation, “I’m going to properly introduce you to Iwa-chan, and you can introduce me to Sawamura-kun.”

The introductions are only because they’ve had just over a week of this—a week of sharing each others’ space and calling it a “relationship”—but they’ve kept it to themselves, barely leaving their dorms unless they had to. At least by now, Suga’s dorm feels more lived-in. He’s got assignments and notices tacked to his pinboard, flowers on the windowsill, and textbooks lining his shelves. There are clothes on the floor—some of them Tooru’s—and the bathroom is a _mess_.

It’s everything Suga’s ever wanted.

They get something to eat at a small restaurant just off campus, and sit in the corner with their knees touching under the table.

“You know,” Suga says, “I’ve been marking off days on a calendar since I moved to Tokyo.”

“How long has it been?” Tooru asks.

“Fifty-seven days,” Suga says. He looks down at the table—sometimes, he’s so overwhelmed that he can’t meet Tooru’s eyes.

“I hope you’ve been marking days since our first date too,” Tooru says.

Suga looks up specifically to pull a face at him. “We’re not going to become one of those couples who celebrate an anniversary every five hours, are we?”

“I’m not saying _you_ have to become one of those people,” Tooru says, his tone light and flippant, “but I’m going to need someone to keep a record for me.”

“I genuinely don’t know if you’re joking or not,” Suga says.

“Well, it’s only been eight days and thirteen hours,” Tooru says. “We’ve got time.”

Suga sighs, his grin falling into a more relaxed smile. “Does it feel fast?” he asks. “Does it feel like this is too sudden?”

Tooru leans back in his seat, just a bit. “Sometimes I think that if I don’t move fast, I regret going slowly.”

“I hope you’re not like that when you play volleyball,” Suga jokes.

“Sometimes,” Tooru says, shrugging. “But then, you were always the type to be more calculated, weren’t you?”

“I suppose so,” Suga says. “You saw me on court—”

“You were _frustrating_!” Tooru says. When Suga laughs at him, he practically pouts. “I’m serious! Targeted serves are annoying.”

Suga raises an eyebrow at that. “Where do you think I got the idea?”

Tooru is wide-eyed in astonishment. He puts a hand to his chest. “From me? No way, Koushi. I won’t accept this.”

“If you insist,” Suga says. “But, Tooru, you know that I’ve been aware of you longer than I’ve been aware of _you_ , right?”

“That makes no sense,” Tooru says, “but you’re cute, so I’ll excuse you.”

That’s the other thing Suga’s getting used to—Tooru gives lots of compliments, and he does it with a lot of things, but his tone changes when he’s complimenting Suga, becomes more _serious_ , and it never fails to catch Suga off-guard. He still doesn’t quite know how to react, so he kicks Tooru under the table.

“I’m still getting used to you,” he tells Tooru. “Things might not make sense while that happens. Just bear with me until it does, okay?”

“I can do that,” Tooru says. “In fact, it’d be my pleasure.”

“Alright,” Suga says. “Then, how about we leave this restaurant and get a bit better acquainted?”

Maybe it’s not quite traditional, and maybe it’s sudden, but it’s the best decision Suga’s ever made.


	2. Chapter 2

**Day 1**

Tooru gets back to his dorm later than he intended—it’s only his first day on campus, but he got caught up with his new teammates, the locals who insisted on taking him out for dessert after a marathon first practice. He feels a little bad, because he promised his mum he’d go to bed early every night and keep up good habits. But, well—good habits can start tomorrow.

He’s sort of exhausted after meeting his new teammates. They’ve got a lot of energy, and a lot of drive. And, with time, Tooru thinks he could probably play well alongside them—it doesn’t matter how many times Iwa told him, “you’ll be fine, you bring out the best in whichever team you play with,” because Tooru was still going to be nervous about transplanting his skills into a different city. He’s clicked with one guy, though—Kuroo, who’s followed him back to his dorm.

“Don’t you have somewhere else to be?” Tooru asks.

“Not really,” Kuroo says, shrugging. “My dorm’s only a block away. I can be back whenever.”

Tooru side-eyes him as he unlocks his door. He’s not sure what to think about the fact that his friends for the next few years might be determined entirely by one afternoon of volleyball.

“Oh, hey, have you met your neighbour yet?” Kuroo says, peering at the door next to Tooru’s.

“No,” Tooru says. “I left a note on the mirror for him indicating how our bathroom space is going to be divided.”

Kuroo laughs. “It’s shared bathrooms? I’m sure your neighbour will be grateful you’re setting such, uh, strict ground rules.”

“Don’t be mean,” Tooru says, opening the door and letting Kuroo in ahead of him. “A tidy bathroom is a… a happy heart, or something. My neighbour will understand.”

“Right,” Kuroo says. “And you think leaving a note on the mirror is the best way to go about that?”

“It’ll be fine,” Tooru says. To prove his point, he unlocks the bathroom door, and—it’s changed since Tooru left for lunch and volleyball.

There’s bottle after bottle of hair product and a shaving kit almost identical to Tooru’s on the wide shelf above the sink, but only occupying half of it. Tooru’s neighbour has made sure there's a clear line down the middle, and the only thing on Tooru’s side is a post-it note.

“Oh my god,” he says, almost thinking aloud.

Kuroo’s voice comes back from the bedroom. “What?”

“He left a reply,” Tooru says, picking up the note and squinting at it as he walks back into his bedroom.

“And?” Kuroo prompts.

“ _Hello! Thanks for your note_ ,” Tooru reads. “ _I’m glad we got off on the right foot_ —is he being sarcastic?”

“Anything else?” Kuroo asks.

“He says, _I’ve made sure to keep my things on my side of the bathroom. While we’re making rules, please don’t stick anything else to the mirror, in case it damages the glass. Thank you!_ ”

By the time Tooru’s finished reading, Kuroo’s in stitches. “Looks like you’ve got a fight on your hands, Oikawa.”

“I’m willing to fight,” Tooru says. “I’ve probably got twice as many bottles of product as this guy. I can definitely win.”

“Did you even look at his nameplate?” Kuroo asks.

Tooru shrugs. “I’ll look eventually.”

“Okay,” Kuroo says, but he doesn't sound convinced.

Kuroo doesn’t stay for much longer after that. He makes his excuses, heads back to his dorm, and leaves Tooru to contemplate his situation. He hasn’t properly unpacked yet, and his neighbour’s note leaves him with two choices: he could just play by his own rules and put his haircare and shaving things on the clear half of the shelf, or he could respond to the slightly teasing tone of the post-it note he’s still holding.

In the end, it’s an easy decision.

First is his hair gel, then his shampoo and conditioner. He barely manages to fit his shaving kit once he’s stacked all his different aftershaves, and his toothpaste and brush are practically hanging off the edge.

The final touch is a post-it note, left on his neighbour’s side of the shelf. Tooru makes sure to fill up every bit of the note with an essay about the trials of cohabitation and how he intends to overcome them, and then he shifts all of his neighbour’s things a centimetre to the right and moves his own things into the vacated space. He’ll do another centimetre tomorrow, and another the day after that, and see how long it takes for his neighbour to catch on.

If anything—it could be fun.

 

* * *

 

**Day 15**

There’s a power outage in the gym, so volleyball finishes early. Tooru hangs back for a little bit with Kuroo, Bokuto and Komi, who are _always_ hungry after practice, and invariably spend at least ten minutes deliberating on the day’s snack. Tooru hasn’t really been paying attention to their conversation—he rarely does when Bokuto and Komi are around, since they’re old friends, with each other and with Kuroo, and Tooru’s just an interloper. It doesn’t help that they’ve taken to making fun of his Tohoku accent.

“Oh!” Bokuto says, just as Tooru tunes back in. “And, that guy in the education lectures—Komi, you’ve seen him too, right?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Komi says, “I remember him from Nationals. He keeps giving us dirty looks.”

“I think he’s _following_ us,” Bokuto says. “He’s probably jealous he didn’t get scouted onto the team like we did.”

“How would he even know you’re on the team?” Kuroo asks.

“He’s probably been outside the gym _this entire time_ ,” Bokuto says, and they all laugh at that.

Tooru sees this as his opportunity to contribute. “There’s someone I recognise from high school volleyball in half my lectures,” he says.

“Oh yeah?” Kuroo asks. “Do you think he’s stalking you too?”

Bokuto jabs Kuroo in the ribs. “I didn’t say _stalking_ —”

“I don’t think he’s noticed me,” Tooru says. “But it frustrates me just to see him.”

“How come?” Kuroo asks.

It’s frustrating because he’s Karasuno’s pinch setter, and _what_ right does he have to be in Tokyo, presumably studying some sort of science, and throwing himself in Tooru’s path as a constant reminder of his failure at Spring High?

At the time, losing to Karasuno didn’t mean as much, because Tooru was certain he’d be scouted anyway, and that he’d rise to even greater heights. Moving to Tokyo had been part of that plan. Of course, he’d known he would get homesick—and it’s even worse every time Iwa sends him photos when he’s hanging out with Makki and Mattsun—but leaving home had also meant forgetting about Karasuno and Shiratorizawa and every single person who’d ever stood in his way.

Having someone from Karasuno so nearby was not part of the plan.

“Just is,” Tooru says. He’s sort of aware he’s becoming petulant, and that he’s not projecting the image he wanted his teammates to see.

“Don’t fixate on him,” Kuroo says. “I mean, do you even know his name?”

“That’s not the point,” Tooru says, “it’s—”

“Hey, hey, Oikawa,” Bokuto interrupts, holding out his snack from the vending machine. “Relax! Have some chocolate.”

“I’m going back to my dorm,” Tooru says. “I need an early night.”

He doesn’t wait around to hear anyone try to comfort him—and more than anything, he’s annoyed at himself for letting his image slip, for getting into a _mood_ around people he’s just met. He’ll get back to his dorm and have a long shower and pretend he’s doing alright.

There’s something else, though, to cheer him up—a note on the sink from Sugawara Koushi in the dorm next door. Their correspondence has been ongoing ever since Tooru started messing around with the shelf, and Koushi responded in kind. Tooru’s even started thinking of Koushi as a friend, even though they’ve never met, and it’s clear that they keep wildly different hours.

This note reads: _Since we use the same brand, Tooru-kun, that foam could have been from either of us. However, I’m willing to give you the benefit of doubt and have cleaned it away. Next time, I hope you will consider doing your bit to keep our bathroom just as tidy as you want it to be! :)_

Tooru laughs out loud, and then slaps a hand over his mouth, still grinning, when he hears a chair creaking in the other room. This is the first time, he’s sure of it, that he and Koushi have been awake and in their dorms at the same time. Tooru could just knock on the door and find out who he’s been talking to—but, somehow, that’d take away from the mystery.

He knows Koushi can hear, though, he brings his post-its and a pen into the bathroom and writes deliberately and loudly. And when he gets ready to shower, he make sure to run the water twice as heavily as he usually does so that Koushi can hear.

It’s fine for a bit, but after a few minutes he can hear Koushi talking on the phone. Tooru relishes his long showers, but he has the greatest urge to switch the water off entirely and press his ear to the door to eavesdrop. He wants to know what kind of voice Koushi has, even if he’s not quite ready to break the spell of anonymity yet. And then, Koushi _laughs_ , and Tooru could swear he’d just heard a chorus of angels.

That’s also when it hits him that it’s maybe a bit weird for him to be feeling like his heart is about to explode while he’s in the shower, so he hastily turns off the taps and dries himself off.

It sounds like Koushi’s not on the phone anymore, though. Tooru is weirdly disappointed. Maybe that’s something he’ll have to think about eventually. Maybe he’ll have to think about why his heart is beating twice as fast as normal. Eventually.

 

* * *

 

**Day 32**

Tooru isn’t making a good impression for the first real social event of the year. It’s just some party at one of Kuroo’s friend’s houses, but it’s the most people Tooru’s had to put on a good front for since his first biology lab—and he’s running late.

He’s dressed up nicely, though, and the plan is to act like nothing’s wrong and flawlessly pull off the “fashionably late” look.

There are no dramatic entrances at this party, though. Everyone’s chatting to someone else when Tooru walks through the front door, and no-one spares a glance for him. He could probably just pretend he’s been here the entire time. He frowns at himself, accidentally catching someone’s eye and switching hastily to a smile.

At least Kuroo is tall—Tooru can spot him and his ludicrous hair from the other side of the room. He makes his way through the crowd and gets close enough to call out, but just as he’s about to, he notices who Kuroo’s talking to. There’s a short guy with him, and with them there’s Karasuno’s pinch setter, the absolute bane of Tooru’s life, even though they still haven’t encountered each other beyond Tooru glaring at him from the other side of a lecture theatre.

Abandoning any hope of talking to Kuroo at all, Tooru turns on the spot and marches back to the front door—and he’s stopped by Bokuto.

“Oikawa! I didn’t know you were coming!”

Tooru feels all his will draining from him. Bokuto has enough social vibrancy for ten people. “Actually, I was just leaving,” Tooru says.

“How come?” Bokuto asks.

“Ugh,” Tooru says, glancing back. “That guy—remember how I mentioned someone in my lectures who I recognised from volleyball?”

“Oh, yeah,” Bokuto says, “I remember. He’s here?”

“Yeah, and apparently Kuroo knows him,” Tooru says, “although I don’t know _how_.”

Bokuto’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, you mean—”

“Hey, what’s going on here?” Kuroo interrupts, slinging an arm each over Tooru and Bokuto’s shoulders.

“Oikawa’s hiding,” Bokuto chirps, and Tooru scowls at him.

“Oh, right,” Kuroo says, “I think I understand a few things now. Just a second, Bokuto—”

Without much ceremony, Kuroo yanks Tooru by the wrist and away from the throng, leading him out into the house’s garden.

“Dude,” Kuroo says, “you should have mentioned the guy you were worried about went to Karasuno.”

“How do you know him?” Tooru asks, trying not to sound too hysterical.

“They’re like, old rivals with Nekoma,” Kuroo explains. “They came to the Fukurodani Group training camp last year. Look, you need to try to forget about it. Just because they beat you at Spring High, doesn’t mean that one player from the team is personally out to get you.”

Tooru rolls his eyes. “I _know_ that. It’s just—it’s uncomfortable, you know?”

He feels stupid admitting to it, but Kuroo at least gives him a sympathetic smile. “Hey, what happened with the post-its in your bathroom?” he asks suddenly.

“Why’re you bringing that up now, huh?” Tooru asks.

“I just remembered it,” Kuroo says, smirking a bit. “Are you two still writing back and forth?”

“Yeah,” Tooru says, relaxing a bit. “It’s competitive, but he’s also—ugh, how do I say ‘sweet’ without it sounding weird?”

“It’s already plenty weird,” Kuroo says. “Go on. Power through it.”

“He’s sweet,” Tooru says, exhaling. “I might like him.”

“Just ‘might?’” Kuroo asks, prodding Tooru in the arm.

“Don’t push me,” Tooru says, giving Kuroo a fake glare.

“In your own time,” Kuroo says.

Tooru takes a deep breath. “Well, even though we only really talk about the state of our bathroom, there’s something… something about his tone, you know? It’s kind of endearing.”

“You’ve got it bad,” Kuroo says. “Seriously, I’m no doctor, but these look like all the symptoms of a crush.”

“Why do I even tell you things,” Tooru says.

Kuroo shrugs. “Because I’m the best friend you’ve got in Tokyo?”

“You’re right!” Tooru says, straightening himself out. “Why haven’t I told Iwa-chan yet?”

He makes his apologies to Kuroo and dashes out of the party before anyone can see him, and as soon as he’s out the door he gets out his phone and dials Iwa. It’s not a long walk back to uni, but it’ll give him enough time to say what he has to say.

“Iwa-chan!”

“Hold on,” Iwa says grumpily, and then, as though he’s talking to someone else, adds, “I’ll be back in a minute.”

There’s a pause, and Tooru hears what he thinks must be Iwa propping a door open with something.

“Okay,” Iwa says, “let’s talk.”

“Who’re you with, Iwa-chan?” Tooru asks. “Did I interrupt something _intimate_?”

Iwa sighs. “I’m just hanging out with Sawamura.”

Tooru pulls a face at the quiet street. “Why are you busy being all buddy-buddy with someone from Karasuno while I’m being haunted by one of them?”

“Huh?” Iwa says. “Haunted?”

“Never mind that,” Tooru says. “I just called to tell you that something _momentous_ has happened.”

“What, you finally grew out of your ego?”

“Very funny,” Tooru says. “You should be a comedian, Iwa-chan.”

“Well, what is it?” Iwa asks.

“I,” Tooru announces, “have a _crush_.”

On the other end of the line, his proclamation is met with loud laughter. “Oh my _god_ ,” Iwa gasps, “you called to tell me _that_?”

“I couldn’t hold it in,” Tooru says. “Plus, I felt bad for accidentally telling Kuroo first. You should feel privileged that, as my best friend, I choose to entrust you with this sensitive information.”

“Okay,” Iwa says slowly. “Okay, so, tell me about them.”

“Well,” Tooru says, drawing the word out to mimic Iwa’s confused tone, “we haven’t exactly ‘met,’ in the traditional sense. You remember how I told you about the bathroom shelf war with my neighbour, and the post-it notes?”

“Oh my god,” Iwa says again.

Tooru grins. “Yeah. I think I like him. No, no, I don’t think so! I _do_ like him! Anyway, his name is Sugawara Koushi and even though I don’t know what he looks like because we’re never in our dorms at the same time, he has a laugh like an _angel_ , Iwa-chan, so he _must_ be beautiful.”

“Slow down,” Iwa says, “and rewind a few seconds. What did you say his name is?”

“Sugawara Koushi,” Tooru says.

“Shit,” Iwa says, his tone switched to something strange and urgent. “Fuck. I have to go.”

“Already?” Tooru asks.

“Yeah,” Iwa says. “Holy _shit_ , Oikawa. I’ll—I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“If you insist,” Tooru says, but Iwa’s already hung up.

He mopes all the way back to his college and plods up the stairs to his dorm. On the way up, he passes someone talking on the phone—the guy’s distracted and doesn’t spare Tooru a glance, but Tooru could swear it’s the short guy he saw with Kuroo and Karasuno’s pinch setter at the party earlier.

When he gets into his dorm, he makes a beeline for the bathroom. There’s quiet chatter from the other room, but nothing Tooru can make out. If Koushi has a friend over, maybe now’s not the time for Tooru to knock on the adjoining door and confess his undying love.

To tide Tooru over, there’s a note pinned to the shower door: _I don’t mind if you put notes here! It may be a bit hard in the mornings, though, with all the condensation. As for your shampoo problem, I’d suggest that maybe you’re just using more than usual—although maybe more of it’s going on the floor than your hair, since it’s always so slippery in here._

Tooru is so, _so_ smitten. It’s ridiculous how Koushi can just be writing about showers and shampoo, but Tooru still feels his heart leap. He puts the note in the bin with all the others, but not after taking a few minutes to admire the clean lines of Koushi’s handwriting.

He doesn’t sleep that night.

 

* * *

 

**Day 49**

Tooru closes the bathroom door and heads straight for his bed, flopping down face-first. He can’t pinpoint how he feels—in fact, he’s remarkably numb, except for the spot on his arm where Koushi pinched him. It’s like his entire life has been leading up to this moment, the moment that was supposed to be a startling and dramatic reveal, where he comes face-to-face with his neighbour for the first time. Instead, he found Karasuno’s pinch setter half-asleep outside his door, barely coherent as he asked for Tooru to unlock the bathroom door.

In Koushi’s defence, he looked just as shocked as Tooru felt. There was no way for him to have known who he was sharing a bathroom with—and Tooru _really_ regrets not putting his surname on his nameplate—and there was no way he’d even know that Tooru was in Tokyo in the first place, no way he’d make the connection between the name and the person he knew. Not that they even knew each other, not properly.

The only way he could have known would be if their mutual “friend” Kuroo—who, effective immediately, is in Tooru’s bad books—had told him, and _obviously_ he’d decided to let them work it out for themselves. Iwa isn’t free from the bad books either, because he definitely knew the moment Tooru gave him Koushi’s name over the phone, and did _nothing_. In the end, it’s all down to Tooru to make sense of this.

“What do I _do_?” Tooru mumbles into his pillow.

He can hear the shower running in the bathroom, and a part of him almost wants to run while Koushi’s otherwise occupied, to grab his keys and sprint to the front desk and request a room change. But he’d be a real coward if he did that. He takes the slightly-less-cowardly option and stays collapsed on his bed until he hears the shower stop running. Then, he forces himself to get up, and knocks on the bathroom door.

“Can I come in?”

There’s a sigh from the other side of the door. “Give me a second,” Koushi says.

Tooru leans against the door until he hears it unlock. He’s not prepared to open it and see Koushi standing there with his hair sticking out like he’s just towel-dried it—he’s _attractive_ , and Tooru wants to close the door in his face.

“I’m awake now,” Koushi says. “Did you… want to talk about it?”

“No,” Tooru says. “I mean—”

“I understand,” Koushi says. “I’m shocked too. I honestly never expected to find you here, of all places. And, um, I never really expected that—”

“That… ?” Tooru prompts.

Koushi takes a deep breath. “You said a lot of stuff about me while we were in the corridor, and I know—even though you don’t really know me, and I don’t really know you—I never expected you to—I can’t say this, it’s too—”

“To feel the same way?” Tooru guesses, almost hopefully. He doesn’t know how he expects Koushi to respond, but he _certainly_ doesn’t expect to be jabbed in the ribs.

“Yeah,” Koushi says, smiling a bit, “something like that. I mean, it’s not unexpected, right? We were sort of flirting.”

“More than ‘sort of,’” Tooru says.

“Yeah,” Koushi says, “yeah! That’s right.”

He’s working so hard to reassure himself, and Tooru feels bad for not doing anything reassuring—although given that he’s also having an internal meltdown, he’s not quite sure what he _could_ do. He opens his mouth, a hollow platitude on the tip of his tongue.

What he ends up saying, though, is, “Go out with me!”

Koushi’s eyes go wide. “Excuse me!” he says. “I’m not sure you meant to say that…”

At the time, Tooru _didn’t_ mean to say it, but now that it’s left his mouth, he can’t bring himself to have any regrets. “Yes, I did,” he says, steeling himself to say something embarrassing. “For the last few weeks, we’ve been getting to know each other, even if we didn’t ‘meet’ in the traditional sense. And… I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you. So, if you want to—”

“Yes!” Koushi says. “I have class at—at eight, whenever that is—but we can get breakfast together after that, if you haven’t already eaten.”

“Ah,” Tooru says, “are you asking me out on a date?”

Koushi blinks. “I suppose I am.”

“Let me at least brush my teeth first,” Tooru says, winking, “just in case you want to kiss me.”

“Me too, then,” Koushi says, backing towards the sink and grabbing his toothpaste.

Tooru joins him and they stand next to each other as they brush their teeth. It’s almost uncomfortably domestic, but they keep catching each other’s eyes and then looking away, and Tooru’s heart feels like it’s going to burst.

“Ah,” Koushi says, “I meant to ask—did you really think I wouldn’t notice you moving all my things on the shelf?”

“I hoped you _would_ ,” Tooru says. “That’s half of the fun!”

Koushi hums and, perching his toothbrush between his lips, he reaches over to the shelf and grabs a bottle of Tooru’s hand cream from the left of the line down the middle, and a bottle of his own hair gel from the right, and he switches them.

“There,” he says, taking the toothbrush out of his mouth, “that’s much better.”

Tooru spits and washes off his toothbrush. “Sort of symbolic, huh?”

“Absolutely,” Koushi says. “Now, you’re stuck with me.”

Tooru looks away quickly, a blush rising on his face. “Well,” he says, “that’s just—”

“Oh my god,” Koushi says, “you’re not scary at all.”

“You’re not so bad yourself,” Tooru says, still not looking at Koushi.

Their elbows bump together as they put their things away, and Tooru can’t stop grinning. The worst part is that he knows Koushi can see him in the mirror—the best part is that he can see Koushi, and Koushi is blushing and grinning too.

No—the best part is Koushi winding their fingers together and kissing Tooru on the cheek before disappearing back into his dorm.

Actually, _no_ —the best part probably hasn’t happened yet.

 

* * *

 

**Day 57**

The sun’s gone down by the time they get back to their dorms. When no-one’s looking, Tooru holds Koushi’s hand—luckily, this is most of the walk back.

“I guess this is it,” Tooru says, stopping in front of his door. “This is where we part ways.”

“Ah, and after such a nice night,” Koushi says, pulling his lanyard out of his pocket. “It’s such a pity.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, though,” Tooru says.

“It’s such a long time,” Koushi says, “that I don’t think I’ll be able to cope!”

“Somehow you’ll have to,” Tooru says. “I know it’s hard, but try—try for my sake, Koushi.”

“Okay,” Koushi says, clutching his chest. “Okay, I can do this. Goodnight, Tooru.”

“Goodnight, Koushi,” Tooru says. “Farewell.”

He unlocks his door and lets himself in to his dorm. It’s not the kind of place he can think of as a second home yet, but it’s getting closer. Dumping his bag, he heads straight for the bathroom, waiting until he hears the door opening on the other side—he and Koushi open the doors at the same time, and Koushi’s hands fly to his face in affected shock.

“Tooru! It can’t really be you, can it?”

“It feels like we’re a lifetime apart,” Tooru says, pressing a hand to his forehead. “And yet, so close!”

Koushi breaks character first, doubled over laughing. “God, you’re melodramatic,” he says.

“I call it _acting_ ,” Tooru says, putting his hands on his hips.

They meet in the middle, in front of the sink, and Koushi picks up their identical bottles of shaving foam and swaps them from one side to the other.

“Joke’s on you,” Tooru says, “I’ve been using yours for the last three days.”

Koushi lets out another laugh. “I’ve been using yours.”

Tooru links their hands together. “Remember what I said about bathroom cohabitation?”

“You said it’s the key to a healthy relationship, or something,” Koushi says.

“Right,” Tooru says. “I think I just made that up on the spot.”

Koushi has to stand on his toes to kiss Tooru—which, as far as Tooru’s concerned, is _adorable_ —but he bends down a bit anyway so that they meet in the middle. Most of their kisses have been in the bathroom. Somehow, it’s where they’re most comfortable. Tonight, Tooru wants to break that pattern.

“Your room or mine?” he asks, his mouth still hovering against Koushi’s.

“So forward,” Koushi says, and Tooru can feel his lips move into a smile. Tooru can’t help but smile with him.

“Not like _that_ ,” Tooru says. “I know I said we’d call Iwa-chan and Sawamura-kun, but don’t you think that can wait until tomorrow?”

“I think so,” Koushi says. “Okay, my room, then.”

Where Tooru’s room is a bit minimalist, Koushi’s room feels like it’s been lived in for years, not just weeks. Koushi closes the bathroom door behind him and jumps onto his bed, rolling to the side to make room for Tooru to lie beside him.

Tooru closes his eyes, and when he opens them he can hardly believe that Koushi is still there, and that he’s been so incredibly lucky. Their legs slot together neatly, with Koushi’s knees just a bit higher than Tooru’s.

“Hey,” Tooru says. “I like you.”

“I like you too,” Koushi says. “Let’s fall asleep like this.”

“I can think of a few things we can do before falling asleep,” Tooru says, and then, “Did I say that aloud?”

“Well,” Koushi says, his eyes turning downwards, “we were both thinking it.”

Eventually, they do fall asleep together—not for another hour, though. And Tooru wakes up early the next morning, even without an alarm, with his arms still wrapped around Koushi, and all he can think is, _wow_.

He gets up quietly, but Koushi stirs a bit, eyes half open and smiling softly.

“I’m just going for a run,” Tooru whispers. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Before he goes, he ducks into his dorm for a post-it note and a pen, and leaves a message for Koushi on the bathroom shelf. Then he swaps their shaving foam bottles again, just for fun.

And when he gets back from his run, Koushi’s left for class, but there’s a note in reply stuck to the shower door. This one, Tooru doesn’t throw out.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Leave a comment, chat to me, I am always more than willing to screech incoherently about OiSuga.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Bathroom Sharing For Dummies (the hotel lobby remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4951381) by [kingdra (aroceu)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aroceu/pseuds/kingdra)




End file.
